The invention relates to a labeling machine for objects, especially bottles, which are transported on the turntables of a bottle carrier past a label gripping cylinder coupled rigidly with a carrier for label pickup elements which are operated by a cam drive and roll against various means such as glue rollers, label stacks and label gripping cylinders, the objects or bottles being thus provided with the labels picked up by the pickup elements, each turntable being rotated by a cam follower guided in a stationary cam groove such that, upon the transfer of the label from the gripper cylinder to the bottles, synchronism substantially exists between the label grippers of the gripper cylinder and the areas of the bottles to which the labels are to be applied.
For a perfect labeling of the bodies it is necessary not only that the labels be taken by the pickup elements from the label stack in a rolling action and be transferred to the gripper cylinder in synchronism therewith, but also that the gripper cylinder transfer the labels synchronously to the areas of the bottles to which the labels are to be applied. If the bottles are transported on an arcuate path, then synchronism of the gripper cylinder obtains only for a selected radius of the bottles being labeled. Slight departures from synchronization, which result when the bottle size is changed, or when labels are to be applied on the one hand to the body of the bottle and on the other to the shoulder or neck area thereof, can be compensated more or less well by the pressing elements of the gripper cylinder on the basis of their pliability. Provision has to be made, however, for greater departures from synchronism.
In a known labeling machine of the kind described above, synchronism between the bottles on a bottle carrier of small division and a gripper cylinder of larger division is achieved by making the path velocity of the bottle carrier lower than the path velocity of the gripper cylinder, but on the other hand the bottles are rotated on their own axis by a cam control such that the sum of the path velocity of the areas of the bottles to which the labels are to be applied and the circumferential velocity produced by the rotation of the bottles in the areas to which the labels are to be applied is equal to the path velocity of the label grippers of the gripper cylinder. In this labeling machine no provision can be made for a changeover to a different bottle format or a different division.
Also, a bottle carrier is known in which the turntables can be turned in one sense of rotation by a cam control with a greater or lesser angular velocity. The turning control consists of a cam and cam follower. Individual sections of the cam are replaceable in order to obtain a variety of rotatory movements.